Poetry Review 108/01 Spring 2018

The act of writing is, I believe, a hopeful one, whatever its content: it’s a message to the future where it will eventually become a message from the past. It’s an acknowledgement of “the change that is bound to come” (from Fran Lock’s ‘cordelia at the home of the incurables’), that’s maybe just beyond the horizon. It’s like ringing a little bell in the belief that somewhere, sometime, another bell will ring in answer.

from Emily Berry’s Editorial

Gallery

W.S. Graham at 100

Poems

Fran Lock, from cordelia at the home for the incurables
Kim Hyesoon / Don Mee Choi, A Face, A Doll, Underworld, Asphyxiation, Don’t
Jack Nicholls, Auld Lang Syne
Fiona Benson, Haruspex, Fly, Village, Hide and Seek, [Zeus] Anatomical Dolls
Hannah Lowe, Milked, Cold Stone
Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Craquelure
Kathryn Maris, The death of empiricism, from The House of Atreus
Carolyn Jess-Cooke, We Have to Leave the Earth Because We Know So Much
Mona Arshi, Like the first morning, Ghazal: Darkness
Jack Underwood, There Is A Supermassive Black Hole…, A girl or woman in relation to either or both of her parents
Ruth McIlroy, Change of Shift at the University Swimming Pool, For example I was in the sea at 4 a.m. today
Philip Gross, Himself, The Age of Electricity
Rebecca Goss, Reverse Charge Call
Alison Brackenbury, Wednesday on the 97, Sheela na gig, St Michael’s, Oxford, Directions
Lawrence Sail, Birdcall
Igor Klikovac / John McAuliffe, Jovo
Ruth Padel, Clast
Anthony Anaxagorou, After the Formalities  Read Anthony’s ‘Behind the poem’ article

Manifestos

Harmony Holiday, Choman Hardi and Wendy Cope

Prose from Poetry

from ‘Microliths’: Paul Celan translated by Pierre Joris
Willing to be reckless: Ange Mlinko on Marianne Moore

Essay

I know that men can mistake: Andrew McMillan on Tom Paulin

Reviews

Kayo Chingonyi on Douglas Dunn and Penelope Shuttle
Karen McCarthy Woolf reviews Danez Smith, Cal Freeman and Ishion Hutchinson
Carol Rumens on Jackie Kay, Miles Burrows and Leontia Flynn
So Mayer reviews the feminine poetics of Irene Solà, Shivanee Ramlochan and Khairani Barokka
Vidyan Ravinthiran on Stephanie Burt and Ahren Warner
Rory Waterman reviews Jacqueline Saphra and Roddy Lumsden
Claire Crowther on Sasha Dugdale and Sina Queyras
Jane Yeh reviews first collections by Hera Lindsay Bird, Jenna Clake and Kaveh Akbar
Nahrain Al-Mousawi on an anthology of new Palestinian poetry

The National Poetry Competition 2017 winners